Cars In The Future : The Purpose of this Paper
Return to Cars In The FutureThis paper seeks to explore how driving will change in the future due to the advances in technology, and how it interacts with the driver. It will look at what predicted casualty savings we can expect from new technology, as well as how quickly it will spread into the market.
Several issues that the paper highlights need to be urgently addressed, as the effectiveness to which they are dealt with could change that way that we drive, and survive, on the roads significantly.
The policy paper is not intended to look at technical engineering issues, nor is it an in depth literature review of any of the technologies which it discusses. It will look at how technology will change the way cars and the roads are used as well as looking at and raising key issues which need addressing from literature and scientific studies, in order to facilitate a smooth introduction of vehicle safety systems.
It is intended to help the general public understand what exactly is happening with cars, and where the technology is going. Hopefully it will also raise consumer awareness of what many of these new technologies do, and how they can help.
It is also intended to help those working in road safety understand what all of the current issues around vehicle engineering are, and how in future, it will relate more to education, training and publicity work.
Finally, it is hoped that those working in the media will be able to use it as a point of reference, to balance or give a further perspective to articles.
The timescales that the paper looks at are longer than many other policy documents, as technology takes time to be developed and distributed throughout the national vehicle fleet. Indeed, there is no new vehicle engineering measure that could be launched tomorrow which will have a measurable impact on reaching the 2010 road safety targets.
Speeding the propagation of current technology through the vehicle fleet is where focus must lie if the influence of vehicle safety measures is to be increased on the short-term accident statistics.
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